Personal recap

After a long-range shot fails to kill the French president, General Tom O'Day recruits Jack Reacher to assess four possible marksmen. Evidence points to John Kott, a former Army sniper Reacher once sent to prison, and Reacher travels to London with intelligence officer Casey Nice. There they battle the Romford Boys, the gang sheltering Kott, while the supposed second shooter is eliminated from consideration. Reacher kills gang enforcer Joseph Green and then Kott, while Nice saves Reacher by killing gang boss Charlie White. Back in the United States, Reacher determines that the shot was never meant to penetrate the French armor. He accuses O'Day of financing a controlled demonstration to manufacture an intelligence crisis and improve his agency's standing. Reacher and Nice retain enough knowledge to threaten O'Day, who is later reported dead in an officially accidental shooting. Nice remains in intelligence, and the immediate assassination threat is over.

Previously: Jack Reacher left the Army as a major and continued an itinerant life without a permanent home.

Eight days after a rifleman fires at the French president from extreme range, Jack Reacher notices a personal advertisement that directs him to Rick Shoemaker. The message is an indirect summons from General Tom O'Day, Reacher's former superior. At Fort Bragg, O'Day's team explains that the Paris shot may have been an audition for an attack on leaders at an international summit. Only four retired marksmen appear capable of it. The American candidate is John Kott, a former elite sniper whom Reacher helped convict of murdering a Ranger sixteen years earlier. Kott has completed his sentence and disappeared from his Arkansas home. Senior CIA officer Joan Scarangelo joins the inquiry, while Casey Nice is assigned as Reacher's field partner. Reacher and Nice travel to Arkansas, where Kott's neighbor provides little useful information. At the isolated property they discover a purpose-built firing platform and a target area exactly 1,400 yards away, matching the distance of the Paris attack. The matching range makes Kott the strongest American lead.

Kott's house contains Reacher's Army records and a life-size target bearing Reacher's likeness, showing that Kott has trained for a personal confrontation. Reacher also discovers that Casey Nice is a CIA officer temporarily presented as State Department staff. In Paris, ballistics investigator Yevgeniy Khenkin determines that the presidential shot was deliberately aimed to damage the protective glass. A distant sniper kills him before he can report the implication, and an apparent decoy helps divert the police toward Reacher. Reacher reconstructs a two-shooter operation: one marksman fired at the glass, while Kott waited to exploit the opening. He believes Kott later aimed at him but killed Khenkin when wind shifted the bullet. Ammunition evidence links that killing to fragments from Kott's Arkansas range. Meanwhile, Albanian gang leader Karel Libor is killed by another long-range shot in London. O'Day's team concludes that Kott and presumed British partner William Carson may be buying protection from the Romford Boys by eliminating a rival. Reacher and Nice are assigned to enter Britain without official protection and pursue the threat before the G8 meeting.

Security footage confirms that John Kott traveled from Paris toward London. Reacher and Nice arrive with encrypted communications and funds but no government weapons. They inspect Wallace Court, where the G8 leaders are scheduled to gather outdoors for photographs. Fyodor Datsev is located in Russian custody, leaving Kott and William Carson as the presumed active pair. Reacher maps possible sightlines toward the venue, but the investigation soon draws a response from the local support network. Two men posing as police attempt to confine Reacher and Nice in a panel van. Reacher overpowers them, and one dies from his injuries. Cash, forged identification, and a gang tattoo prove that the abductors are Romford Boys. Reacher and Nice leave the van where they can watch its recovery, turning the failed abduction into a probe of the organization. A very large enforcer retrieves the surviving man. British intelligence then identifies the gang's senior figures: elderly boss Charlie White, enforcer and executive member Joseph Green, and fellow council members Tommy Miller and Billy Thompson. The gang now knows that Reacher and Nice escaped, forcing them to abandon their lodging and relocate.

Reacher and Nice try to obtain pistols through a Serbian-connected criminal business, but the sellers imprison them while Joseph Green's men approach. They escape after a violent struggle in which Nice kills the garage leader in self-defense. Reacher finds concealed Glock pistols and ammunition, arms both of them, and calls the Romford Boys directly to demand the release of Kott and Carson. Nice struggles with having killed a man, but continues the mission. Bennett, the British intelligence officer from Paris, reappears and explains that his service has been monitoring their movements and communications. British authorities will observe and exploit the disruption caused by the Americans, but do not intend to provide open protection while British citizens are involved. Bennett moves Reacher and Nice to a Mayfair hotel and takes them to a covert observation post overlooking Joseph Green's unusually large, heavily guarded house. Surveillance shows that Green increased his personal security when the two marksmen first approached the Romford Boys, yet no visible transport or supply pattern reveals a separate hiding place. Reacher and Nice remain armed and operational, but neither Kott nor Carson has been sighted.

Reacher infers from the guard pattern and deliveries that Kott and Carson are hidden inside Joseph Green's house. At Wallace Court he studies the potential firing lines, then asks Bennett for classified information about the transparent armor used in Paris. He has begun to doubt that the G8 gathering is the true target. Reacher also tells Nice that he accepted the assignment partly because Rick Shoemaker once concealed an unlawful killing committed by Reacher during an earlier operation. Nice refuses to withdraw from the current danger. Because Green's house is hard to assault, Bennett proposes abducting Charlie White to provoke a succession struggle among the Romford Boys leaders. Reacher and Nice intercept White's car, overpower his escort, and take him to the former surveillance hut. Bennett arrives alone and explains that his team removed the monitoring equipment to prevent incriminating recordings. He also brings proof that William Carson died in Venezuela from an infected gunshot wound before the current climax. Carson therefore cannot be Kott's partner, leaving Kott as the sole active marksman. Reacher decides to use White as bait to draw Green away from the fortified house.

Joseph Green discovers the group at the surveillance hut, frees Charlie White, and captures Reacher, Nice, and Bennett. Reacher exploits the disorder around White's release, and the three prisoners overcome Green's guards. Green arranges a delayed check-in with Kott's security team, meaning they will abandon his house if he fails to answer. Reacher fights Green on the bowling green and kills him. The unanswered call sends Kott's four guards away. Bennett then produces the French armor report: the transparent shield can withstand the relevant armor-piercing ammunition, and Tom O'Day attended its trials. Reacher enters Green's oversized house alone. He locates Kott's loaded rifle and knocks its sight out of alignment, then finds Kott barricaded in a bedroom with a restrained woman. Reacher shoots Kott through a gap beside the door and frees the captive, who immediately injects herself with Kott's syringe and becomes incapacitated. While Reacher carries her out, White confronts him with a pistol. Nice approaches White unseen and shoots him, saving Reacher. With Green, Kott, and White dead, the immediate London operation ends. Reacher and Nice leave Bennett behind and board an RAF flight to the United States.

On the return flight, Nice decides to remain in intelligence rather than join the Army. At Pope Field, Joan Scarangelo reports that British authorities credit Reacher with enabling Kott's removal. She also explains that the CIA communications channel believed to be compromised carries deliberate false traffic, while a hidden replacement system uses weather-satellite data. Reacher remains troubled by the money behind Kott's operation. The armor report provides the answer: a real attempt to penetrate the shield would have required two shots in rapid succession, but Kott was assigned only one. Reacher concludes that the Paris attack was designed to fail safely and display the armor's effectiveness, creating an international intelligence crisis without killing the protected president. He accuses Tom O'Day of financing and directing the scheme to restore his standing, using Kott's hatred to endanger Reacher and planning for either man to eliminate the other. O'Day does not meaningfully answer the accusation. Reacher and Nice retain information capable of damaging him and avoid traveling on his aircraft. Reacher later learns that O'Day has died in what is officially called an accidental firearm discharge. The precise circumstances remain unknown, while the assassination threat and Kott's vendetta are ended.

Reacher, Nice, and Bennett escape the Romford Boys' custody. Reacher kills Joseph Green, and Green's unanswered check-in causes Kott's guards to leave the house. Reacher enters alone, disables Kott's rifle sight, and kills Kott while freeing an unidentified captive. Charlie White then threatens Reacher, but Nice approaches unseen and kills White. Reacher and Nice return to Pope Field, where Scarangelo explains that the apparent compromise of CIA communications was a controlled deception. Nice chooses to remain in intelligence. Reacher connects the Paris shot to armor that O'Day had personally seen withstand the relevant ammunition. He concludes that O'Day funded a one-shot demonstration that could not kill the protected target, hoping to create a crisis that would enhance his agency and either sacrifice Reacher or dispose of Kott. Reacher and Nice confront O'Day, preserve the information that could damage him, and avoid his aircraft. O'Day is subsequently reported dead from an accidental firearm discharge, but the actual circumstances of his death remain unresolved.